Valentina Zuin

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Valentina was born and grew up in Milan, Italy and she is a PhD student in the Emmet Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER). Valentina’s focus is on water service delivery in peri-urban areas in developing countries. In particular, she is interested in understanding how water utilities learn to serve poor consumers, and how services provided by alternative providers such as water resellers and small scale private providers can be better integrated with the service provided by utilities.

Valentina’s interest in urban issues in developing countries started in Lima, Peru, where she researched business practices of informal street vendors and micro-entrepreneurs. Valentina became passionate about infrastructure development while investigating a slum-upgrading project in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, which provided housing and basic infrastructure to more than 150,000 people living on stilts.

Before starting her PhD, Valentina worked for three years for the Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank based in Maputo, Mozambique. Her responsibilities included supporting the Planning Department of the National Directorate of Water of the Government of Mozambique, the peri-urban unit of the water regulator, and the water utility. Valentina also worked on rural water and peri-urban water in Angola and did some work on small towns in the African continent.

Valentina holds a BS in Public Economics from Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, and a Master degree in International Development and Regional Planning from MIT, Cambridge, MA.

Valentina loves traveling and learning about different cultures and traditions, playing tennis, swimming, skiing, having nice dinners with friends, Nutella, and walking and diving in Caribbean beaches.